


Unspoken

by VioletMind



Category: Divergent (Movies), Divergent - All Media Types, Divergent Series - Veronica Roth
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, If You Squint - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-04
Updated: 2017-10-04
Packaged: 2019-01-08 19:50:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12260955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VioletMind/pseuds/VioletMind
Summary: Neither of you were entirely sure how it came to this. The first few times, it could have been written off as coincidence, as accidents. If it had stopped there then that’s all it would be. Instead, it only grew.Or, Eric's a secret cuddlebug.





	Unspoken

Neither of you were entirely sure how it came to this. The first few times, it could have been written off as coincidence, as accidents. If it had stopped there then that’s all it would be. Instead, it only grew. 

You were the only transfer from Amity when you came to Dauntless. You were the second jumper with your heart in your throat, and you were afraid of Eric. Looking back on it, you suspected anyone would be. He was cruel and at least a little bit sadistic, openly taking amusement from the ordeals of initiates and being the orchestrator of many of them in the first place. His words seemed designed from the start to either wound or mock whenever he opened his mouth and his orders without fail were barked with edges sharp enough to cut.

You had never seen him give an honest smile, had never seen him be more than Dauntless Leader. Maybe that was where your curiosity, morbid as it was given his disposition, began. You wanted to know why he held himself so far away from everyone else. To you, the overarching purpose of his actions seemed to be keeping people from getting within arm’s reach of him. 

You had understood it, to an extent, yourself not being one to open up to everyone you met despite coming from the faction known for its kindness. But even though you understood aspects of why he constructed so many walls around himself, you still thought the sheer number of them was overkill. You figured he had to be lonely behind them.

You started to meet him head on and stopped rolling over and taking it when he decided to be particularly cruel during training, believing that if you could make him begin to see you as an equal instead of just another initiate, you might get somewhere with him. At first it singled you out in his eyes, making you a prime target for the blonde to torment during training for the simple fact that it entertained him. His power thrived on fear, and yet you had started to grow on him for reasons unknown. 

His new interest in you turned out to be in our favor. He had demanded you train with him not long after your attitude change, under the impression that he could steamroll you back into submission. He would have succeeded at it, too, if not for your stubborn streak flaring to life.

Your motivation morphed from wanting to be accepted into your new faction to proving Eric wrong; it might have even been the core reason you started climbing in the rankings. 

When all was said and done, you were within the top ten, a feat in and of itself no matter what faction an initiate originated from. You started to settle into the hectic life of Dauntless, taking up with the ranks of doctors and nurses that permeated the warrior faction. That’s when the touching truly started.

You didn’t think anything of it, at least not at first. Brushing up against each other in the hallways had gradually evolved into phantom fingertips when the other’s back was turned. A reassuring press of a hand on the small of your back when you started to become visibly overwhelmed. A seconds long squeeze of his shoulder when you passed his table in the cafeteria and thought you caught something else swirling behind his carefully crafted mask. 

With your fear of him long since being picked apart and dismantled, noticing the shifts of his demeanors came more naturally to you, and you thought that the once remote Dauntless leader was beginning to learn how to pick up on the more subtle of clues. Your eyes started to seek each other out when you were in the same room; quick, appraising glances that lasted just shy of being suspicious. The question held in them was always the same; are you okay? 

None of it was ever brought up between you when you would talk, even if it was in private. It was the unspoken rule, the only rule, that went along with whatever it was that was happening between the two of you. 

Even now, months after the furtive touches had begun and you were the nurse assigned to take care of him after the latest mission had gone awry. He had been moved to his apartment in an effort to make him more complacent, the blonde notorious for his hatred of hospitals, after the initial surgery to extract the two bullets lodged in his torso and stitch up his other wounds.

The first days were always the worst. Arguments erupted consistently, pain and feelings of helplessness sharpening his tongue to a razor’s edge. As his nurse you were in your domain, and you would not allow yourself to be cowed by the glares and scathing remarks he would toss your way when you told him time and time again that he wasn’t allowed to do something. 

You would have liked nothing more than to stitch his mouth shut during those days, but your hands were still gentle on him when you changed bandages and patched him up when he inevitably tore a wound open from trying to do too much, too soon.

He was still simmering five days into his care, though the volatility had eased somewhat now that he was able to sit up on his own without you having to yell at him for it. That being said, when you walked into his room to find him sitting on the foot of his bed like he was going to attempt to get up and do something strenuous, you prickled.

“Come here,” He ordered, the authoritarian tone he used cutting through the air before you could get a word in edgewise. You couldn’t stop the huff that left you at the words despite you going to stand between his knees anyways, biting your tongue in favor of checking his injuries. Your hands were gentle as they rose to cup his face, turning his head this way and that to examine the bruising that marred it. You brushed his hair back in order to get a better look at a small gash on his forehead, his hands settling on your hips in the same moment. 

It was nothing new to you, knowing that while the leader was a terrible patient whose bad attitude seemed to only get worse the longer he was on bedrest, he was also more affectionate with you than usual. An odd combination to be sure, but one you were more or less used to by now. 

What you weren’t used to, however, was how his hands slid from your hips to cup the backs of your knees, tugging lightly to urge you onto the bed with him. Your eyebrows knit together as you wondered what he was up to, but nonetheless you found yourself lightly gripping his shoulders to steady yourself as you kneeled over him. 

“Eric…?” You questioned quietly, about to break the rule and ask him why when the corners of his lips twitched upwards, arms snaking around your waist a second later before he fell back onto the bed.

Your laugh was muffled by his neck as you bounced once, twice, before settling against the mattress. Even Eric was smiling, small as it was. You shifted your weight so you weren’t lying directly on him, conscious of the fact that he was still healing, and ended up pressed against his side and were prevented from moving further from one arm still around you. 

You swept a hand over his torso, reassuring yourself that none of his wounds had opened back up or that his stitches had gotten pulled during the short fall. Confident that he hadn’t just knocked himself back a day or so of recovery, you settled in against him with your head resting on his shoulder. Your eyes drifted shut as contentment welled up inside of you, the revelation that Eric was now a cuddler being put on the back burner for when you weren’t on the edge of a nap. 

Eric was in the same boat, the usually formidable leader exhaling in a long sigh as his own eyes closed. He was glad that you didn’t question his actions, not sure if he could give you anything resembling a concrete answer. It was a well known fact throughout the faction that he wasn’t the best when it came to emotions, but you seemed to accept him despite his shortcomings. Maybe that was why he kept circling back to you, no matter how often you infuriated him.

When the two of you woke hours later, still curled up together, neither of you said a word about it.


End file.
